Sephiroth's Fire
by Dragyn
Summary: A Sephiroth fic from his point of view. Centered around his SOLDIER training and the mission to Nibelheim, when he burned the town to the ground. Takes a deeper look into his motives.


**Sephiroth's Fire  
**By Dragyn  
Greandragyn@aol.com  
  
Jenova.  
  
Cetra.  
  
Mako.  
  
The Promised Land.  
  
What do these words mean? They are all familiar and I've heard them many times over. In my missions, in my training. From Hojo, from the President, from the Soldier recruits.  
  
What do they mean?  
  
I've asked. Never getting a straight answer. I'd ask Hojo. He's told me nothing. The man would blow it off like a child's curiosity. Like a child asking where he came from, or who is God?  
  
Except my questions were not curiosity. They were destiny.  
  
Forever I have been told I was a Cetra. They said that I was special. That I had an amount of power that no one else could live up to. That I had potential. That the horrible training and tests were to see if I was worthy.  
  
I remember the white hot pain through my arm as the needle slid into my skin. The brilliant flashes before my eyes, that would not go away even if I shut my eyelids tightly.  
  
I remember screams. I remember gunshots. All in my wake.  
  
Many years afterward, They took me from the labs. I thought at that point that the torture was over. I was far from right.   
  
The people told me that I was to train. I was merely a decade old and they handed me a gun. I was told to shoot the targets. They scolded me and conducted more when I failed, but did nothing when I succeeded.  
  
Every day I went to the target fields. They'd hand me a gun. I'd shoot. If I'd hit the vaguely humanoid silhouettes, I'd get a nod from the superintendent. If I'd miss, which I did often, I'd get a mark in the book.  
  
Marks were bad. They meant that I was failing. I quickly learned under these circumstances that failure was not an option.  
  
It was years of missing targets and crude punishment before they realized that I was not fit for the gun. I did not know it then, but they were about to stamp FAILURE on my records and send me to the labs for permanent experimentation.  
  
Then Hojo, the man I learned to despise throughout my life, decided to give me another chance.  
  
I will never forget the day that my training changed. Hojo brought me to a chamber. I thought it was the end to my unworthy life. The room had no windows, only a solid mythril door connecting it to the outside world. The walls, ceiling and floors were white. There was a single light at the far most point on the high ceiling. The white light reflected off the walls of the cell to create a blinding effect. I was alarmed at first, but settled down, awaiting the needle, or whatever Hojo had in store for me.  
  
He entered the room behind me and closed the door with a snap. I looked on with confusion, seeing that he held no needle, just a large metal case.  
  
I was merely in my mid teens, but I still stood tall, taller than most of the scientists, taller that the president of the company, and to my pleasure, taller than Hojo.  
  
I noticed it then, when he stood, set the case down and approached me. The man only came up to my chin and I had to look down to see eye-to-eye. It was a change. Usually Hojo had me on some sort of cot, or table and was glaring down with his weasel features. The thin hair, narrow nose and pointed chin. The features that were not unlike my own.   
  
He smiled a smile I had learned to fear. The one that meant that I had done something wrong, or that Hojo had concocted another twisted way to torment me. He reached up and patted me twice on the shoulder.  
  
My, how you've grown. He said with mock pride in his raspy voice.  
  
My frown deepened and I replied, Get it over with. I almost drew back at my own voice. A voice that I had not needed to use for years on end. Something I had not heard since my childhood. And then I was only screaming. A higher pitch then, but it had grew calmer and more collected. Deeper and inhuman. A voice, with it's own sadistic qualities, resembled that of Hojo's.  
  
Hojo laughed, another sound that I had learned to fear as well. Another sound that brought back excruciating memories.  
  
So you _can_ talk. You were beginning to worry me, Sephiroth.  
  
_Sephiroth._ My name. Something just as unearthly, if not more, than my voice. As unearthly as my height, or my silver hair that grew long. Sephiroth is my name. Hojo chose it, no doubt. He said it was a word from the Ancients. The Cetra. He told me that it meant perfect ruler. Some kind of pseudo God. With his intentions for me, and his treatment, it seemed that I was at fault. Being God meant torture, meant proving myself somehow. Proving myself to someone who did not care to watch.  
  
I have something for you. Hojo said and turned. How I wished for my gun then, no matter how bad of a shot I was. I'd be more than willing to pump then man full of lead and make a break for ... anywhere. Any place has got to be better than this.  
  
He dragged the large black box closer. I noted with resolve that it was rather heavy for the weasel. If I wanted, I could've killed the weak man with my bare hands. But I decided that it could wait. I was a bit curios of what the case contained.  
  
With a grunt, he placed the box in front of me and unlatched the buckles. It opened without a sound and what I saw inside, I had never seen before.  
  
It was a long blade. I had seen them before, some Soldiers used them, and I'd seen knifes in the operation cells. None of the swords or knives measured up to this one.  
  
It was taller than I. Much taller. It was thin, but not too thin. It looked heavy. It gleamed in the bright reflective light of the chamber. The blade was extremely sharp, without question. I looked down at it, laying in the red velvet, and Hojo sitting beside it.  
  
What are you waiting for? He said with a laugh. Pick it up.  
  
My expression remained unchanged as I bent down to examine the weapon. I felt a chill run throughout my body when I touched the cool hull of the sword. I ran my fingers on the grip for a moment, my hand filling as if the blade was of my very blood.  
  
I pulled upward slowly, feeling the sword slide out of it's confinement. It was lighter than I had expected. I causally held it in front of my chest, looking at my own green eyes in the reflection. I took a step back and swung. A gale of air tossed the hair from my face, accompanied by a sound that was truly unique. A sound that beat in tune with my heart. A sound that I would learn to go by.  
  
Meet the Masamune, Hojo said, the voice distant to my ears. It is your weapon, Sephiroth.  
  
The sound of the sword was my life from then on. Hojo and the others introduced me to the training, but I hardly needed it. The sword's motions, the control and the devastating power all came naturally to me.  
  
I flushed out of the training as it soon became practice. Many straw targets fell under the blade. Soon, the dummies became steel, then mythril and finally, they disappeared altogether.  
  
My targets became real human bodies. Being enrolled in the Soldier program became rigorous. The Shinra sent us on missions. People often died. I often killed.  
  
At first it was hard. The straw and metal dummies never bled, never screamed. It was my job, but it was too awkward. I wanted a break. I didn't want to kill.  
  
But that soon changed. Like a child learning to read, it became easier, more fluid. I became used to blood. I became used to the cries of the victims. Their pleading and screaming fell upon deaf ears.  
  
It was then, I felt invincible. Able to get out of that derelict city, Midgar. Able to experience, able to live.  
  
I soon found myself cutting down entire armies with my sword, my Masamune. In the Midgar Wutai war, I lead the troops to victory. The men of Wutai falling like leaves of a tree, under the winter of Sephiroth. Under the might of Sephiroth's Masamune.  
  
Midgar won the war. I was the cause for victory. The only praise I got was from the people of Midgar, the same people of the family members I killed on missions before.  
  
It seemed that many young men were joining Soldier in hopes of becoming me. _The Great Sephiroth._ A few years back, I would have told them that my life was not good. It was nothing to dream of or want. But I had put any form of regret behind me. It did not matter anymore.  
  
It was a few years later, I was not sure of how many seeming how I lost my sense of time in my childhood, I was assigned a mission that would change my life.  
  
Two Shinra guards, a top ranking Soldier by the name of Zack and myself were assigned to investigate the disturbance in the Mt. Nibel mako reactor.  
  
There was a small town by the name of Nibelheim near the base of these great mountains. It appeared that one of the guards was born there. Not like I cared. I had no hometown to speak of.  
  
We were to sleep in the Shinra mansion. They said that it was owned by a rich couple long ago, they had some connection to Shinra, hence the name. I noticed soon after arriving, that one of the walls on the top floor slid open. There was a spiraling staircase that lead to a basement. I had no time to investigate, for I was called to the mission. It was time to climb Mt. Nibel.  
  
It was not a hard journey. We had a guide that was familiar with the terrain. Half way on our hike, however, a bridge collapsed, losing one of the guards. We had to press on, forgetting the casualty.  
  
We made our way to the reactor with no further incident. I refused to let our young guide in the huge piece of machinery, leaving the guard to watch her. No use in involving anyone who needn't be.  
  
I led Zack into the reactor. What we saw was to imbed itself in my memory forever.   
  
At the far end there was a door labeled The place was filled with metallic pods. I looked inside only to find that there were humans inside. Not quite human. More powerful, deformed, forced to tests and training.   
  
Just like me.  
  
In my captivity, there are many things I doubted. I doubted that I could change my life, I doubted that I could kill Hojo. I even doubted that he was my father, no matter how many times he drilled it into my head.  
  
But one thing I never doubted was my humanity. I thought it was strange to be as strong as I was, or so resistant to torture. My voice, height and hair didn't even arouse much suspicion. I always thought this to be effects of experimentation. That was the most wrong I have ever been in my mako-pumped life.  
  
I am not human. I was created in these pods, in these artificial wombs. I am not human. _I am not human_.  
  
I left the reactor. To the basement was the only answer. There I found more than I ever wanted.  
  
Jenova was a Cetra. Jenova lead the humans to The Promised Land. They killed her and studied her like a lab rat. Jenova wants revenge. Jenova is the rightful owner to the planet, before the humans took away her throne.   
  
Jenova was my mother.  
  
I am Cetra. I am not human. The humans stole the happiness from the Cetra, from Jenova, _from me._  
  
The only guard remaining of the two followed me. I told him of Jenova, I told him of my place, of his place, the human's place. I left him there. He is still probably scratching his head.  
  
And now, this is where I stand. In the front of the gates to the Shinra mansion. A torch in my hand. A torch, my weapon. Fire is a much better weapon than the Masamune. Fire burns the houses, _the humans,_ more quickly that I could ever hack them down. Fire was my friend.  
  
Sephiroth's fire.  
  
I will avenge Jenova, avenge my mother. Destroy the humans like they destroyed her. Take away their happiness. Their petty, undeserved happiness.  
  
I will destroy Hojo for making my life hell. I will destroy the Shinra for holding me captive. I will destroy the humans for destroying my mother. I will destroy. I will destroy. _I will destroy._  
  
I raised the torch to the nearest structure. It caught ablaze straight away. The fire expanding, feeding on the humans. Doing the work of hell. Destroying. Making way for Jenova.  
  
I am a Cetra. My father was Hojo. My mother was Jenova. I use the Masamune to kill. Hojo named me Sephiroth. It means perfect ruler. It means almost God. Hojo was wrong,  
  
_I am God._


End file.
